₦airaland Forum

Oluwizard, I have something similar but it's not free. It requires a US  issued credit card. It's called voicestick.

http://www.voicestick.com/Index.aspx

It gives you a US or UK number that you can forward to any international number in the world but you have the pay the cost for receiving the call on the forwarded number. Their prices are pretty competitive. So, for example instead of giving my family members a calling card to use to call me on my prepaid sim in Lagos, I'll just give them this US number. This number will then be forwarded to my MTN sim. It will be a free call for anyone calling in the US, but I will pay the cost for  forwarding the number. For example, to forward to a UK mobile it's $0.15/min to  Niger mobile it's $0.16/min. Most of the calling cards are at least $0.20 to both UK and Niger.

The bottom line is, it can be forwarded to any number in the world. And, it will not cost anyone in the US to reach me anywhere I am. No need for a calling card.  I just have to pick up the tab for the call.

Old glory, that's what I meant when I said we get a lot of minutes as part of packages. The UK/Nigeria and other GSM countries incoming calls are always free. And that's why it's expensive to call mobiles in these countries. It's called CPP. The Calling Party Pays. For instance, assuming there were no packages(free weeklends, etc.), mind you, there never used to be. Then we would have to pay the $0.40/min. Another example, most people have certain peak/off-peak minutes, What happens when you exceed those minutes? You get charged per minute. Hope you get the point.

adconline, just make sure you always verify before calling back. In this case it was a VOIP number. But, if someone was roaming in Lagos (or anywhere in the world), and they call you, it's going to show the US number. If you call the number back without first verifying, you would be making an international call. I usually roam in Niger with my US or UK number when I first land, until I can get a hold of a local prepaid sim such as MTN.

Not sure if this answers your question. The US does not differentiate between mobile and land lines. The areacodes are the same, so you can't tell if you are calling a mobile or land line.There is nothing like free incoming calls on our mobiles. But, we usually have a lot of prepackaged minutes so it's not an issue. In the case of other countries, UK/Nigeria for example, mobile phones have are differentiated based on areacode. In coming calls are free on mobiles, but somebody has to pay for that termination. So, the caller pays more to call mobiles in most other GSM countries except US.

As the others have said, EDGE (Enhanced GPRS) is a lot faster. Theoretically, it's very close to broadband speed. Since data usage is charged by the KB, and pages will now load faster. It's just going to improve the browsing experience. It costs more to implement EDGE. So, at the minimum, data cost will be the same. Cingular and Tmobile did not increase prices when the rolled out EDGE they, even though there was some rumor that they were, or they may in the future.

PS. Your handset has to be EDGE compatible in order to experience EDGE speed. A lot of older handsets are not.

Take advantage of it while you can. The free service is usually for an introductory period. The revenue from GPRS usage is a major part of these companies bottom line, so they can't continue to offer it for free. Even here in the states, you will not find free data service.

I second the recommendation for a sandisk product. I have a sandisk 512 cruzer myself. You'll also notice that the sandisk's are a little more expensive than most other brands, and that's for a reason.

Read the thread below. And, please do not make the same mistake she made.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-10866.0.html

I'd say search the net, get a hold of some books and study on your own. It's all about hard work and creativity. If you are just looking for a certification, then you can go to one of those schools.

Since you've already uploaded the pictures, you should be able to just point your phone's browser to the URL that you posted the pictures to. That's it!

Exactly Seun!

That's the purpose of the internet, especially discussion forms,  "Information sharing". I have never seen any forums where people post personal information (phone #, email, etc.) like they do in the forums here.

If your MMS is working, then I would check into your particular handset. And make sure that MTN's GPRS is the default one. It may not be and issue if you only have one sim. But if you have several you need to make sure you are using the correct providers setting. For example, I have GPRS settings for Tmobile USA, Virgin UK, Voda UK, and MTN on my phone. So, depending on which sim is in the phone I have to choose the correct one.

The settings are on the web and have been posted somewhere in this forum.

Why don't you post the settings you have here. I am sure someone will take a look at ti and be able to determine what you may be doing wrong.

I googled and found a couple of links that may help:

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-4549.0.html

http://www.mtnonline.com/vas/configuration.asp#

I would also like to add that the #1 language used in colleges to teach Software Engineering is Java. I don't see how we can consider the most popular programming language over the last 10 years a failure.

Every language has it's uses, and most companies will use a blend if that's what it takes. But for enterprise level web applications, Java has proven to be the most suitable and the most successful.

Every language has its pros and cons. You definitely do not want to do any kind of RAD or design User interaction interfaces with COBOL, when there are other languages such as VB, Java, etc. that are well suited for that. OTOH, you do not want to do any kind of data processing that involves millions of records with any other language but COBOL. That's why at a lot of big IT shops, the COBOL applications are still there to handle the back-end stuff, but all the front end is done in other languages.

For example at my previous client, all the user interaction was handles using Servlet and JSP, but the data itself and processing is still done on the mainframe using COBOL. IBM has gone to great lengths to make sure the Java & COBOL interaction using websphere works well.

I have to agree. MS Word is the standard. If you attached it as a word doc, and they can't open it, it'e either they do not have MS word, or the person just does not know how to download/open the attachment. If they do not have MS Word, well to bad for them. OTOH, you can create a text version of your resume for situations like this. Also, a lot of online job agencies that allow you to upload your resume to their DB, will only accept a text version anyway.

delarontus, the fact that you get that message and that you can see other networks means you already have wireless built in. You are good to go! So, you should be able to log on to any open/unsecure WiFi.

Majority of the very large companies such as banks, insurance companies, etc.  have a lot of COBOL that you will not believe it! These are companies that process a lot of data and there is no programming language that does it as well as COBOL. These applications have been out there functioning for years, so there is no reason to rewrite it. (If it ain't broke, don't fix it!).

What these companies are doing is adding a web front to their applications. But their mission-critical data still resides on the mainframe. The last three clients that have worked, all have web fronts accessing data on the mid range, and this data is propagated to the mainframe. I have worked at a couple of major insurance companies. These are companies that have thousands of developers, of which 90% are mainframe developers.

As I am typing this, I am at a clients in downtown Chicago, another very big Health Insurance company, a good majority of the consultants in this room are doing mainframe. As anyone in this field  will tell you, having both mainframe and Object-Oriented Programmong (OOP) skills is a plus. Check out monster.com for OOP related jobs, on a lot of them they always specify that mainframe skills is a plus. The bottom line is, there is a lot of mainframe code out there, and it's not going anywhere.

It all depends on who your provider is. The providers settings are all over this forum You may want to do a search.

akindaves I agree with you. This wedding thing has really being blown out of proportion! it's not how much you spend on a wedding that matters. I agree it's a special occasion. It's also an occasion that can be enjoyed and appreciated without getting into debt over it. It's very common occurrence here, you see people blow their entire savings on their wedding, and 6 months later they are divorced. The divorce rate in this country is almost 50%. What is the point! There is also statistics that show that a good percentage of those marriages that end in divorce not too long after getting married are the ones that had a lavish wedding. I guess they started to have financial problems right away. And, as we all know, money is the root cause of a lot of problems.

A lot of these people have big weddings that they are still paying the debt a number of years into the marriage(if they are still married). And when kids come along, not even a dime can be put away in a mutual fund or educational fund for their kids.

I agree. It all started with yahoo. They were the first to start with a portal, and they are still the best portal. Not sure if they were the first search engine, but they were the most successful, until google came along. Google has pretty much taken that over. And, I believe yahoo has given up. Try doing a serarch in yahoo and do the same thing in google. Yahoo's result are almost totally irrelevant, whereas google will result in an exact match. That tells me that they have given up the on the search engine part of their service.


As for free email, google is beginning to take over. Primarily because of their easy to use and more flexible interface. Another thing is the almost unlimited webspace they provide.

Not sure exactly where to put this. But I think it's worthy news,

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/29/8378124/index.htm

Laptops, cell phones, shavers, camcorders and most other small electronics now come with the 100V- 240v power/chargers. Other electronics that list 110/240V will also work. Anything else, you will need a converter, as posted above. And for the electronics that will work without needing a converter, you will probably need an adapter. Most world phones sold nowadays already come with an adapter.

You should be able to go to your provider's homepage for the settings, or search this forum. At one point or another, I have come across the settings for all the providers in Nigeria.

I believe you should, as long you know the Dial Up Connection (DUN) settings. Check the phones forum for that. You just need to create an internet connection with those settings, and then dial with your phone attached or via bluetooth(BT), if your phone has it.

Unless you are getting free GPRS or unlimited GPRS/EVDO plan (Like we have here on most plans) or so , this can be very expensive in terms of data usage. Remember, on your phone you are loading WAP pages. These are pages that have been formatted for a phone, little or no graphics, etc. so they do not use a lot of data. If you are using DUN via your GPRS on your laptop connection, you are loading regular pages, including the graphics.

For example, I was in the Bahamas a few weeks ago, and I had log into my bank which is not available via WAP. Just logging into my bank to make a quick transaction, and loading my gmail page to read a few mails cost me 3 pounds 30 pence using my Virgin UK prepaid sim via my laptop. It's all about how much data is transferred. It's a big convenience though. Without DUN I would have had to use a cafe.

Nokia 3230 user guide:

http://nokia-asia.com/nokia/0,8764,71258,00.html

As a % of the total population of Africa, the number of users in Africa will be very small (not even worth mentioning). There are lots of problems that still need to be addresses in these developing nations. Especially that we are talking about broadband internet connection, not just internet connection. And even that,

We are getting there little by little, but it will take some time. The infrastructure needs to be in place first. In the US and most developing nations more than 50% of households with a PC have more than 1, with most of them using broadband and some form of home networking via a router. So many things need to be in place for this to happen, but eventually it will.

For example, as I am typing this, I am on the train on my way home, using my laptop connected to my phone. i.e Thethering using my phone as a modem. It's a common scene on the train. Again, it's all about the availability of infrastructure in developed VS developing nations.

This is just one of the limitation that needs to be addressed in Nigeria. A non-existing system of credit is a major drawback for us. It makes it pretty much impossible to purchase anything online.

Paypal just does not work in Nigeria. Think about it, to have a paypal account, you need to have a bank account that can be linked to the paypal acct. Paypal just does not think the infrastructure exists in Nigeria yet. You will need the help of someone that lives and has an acct. in a country where paypal is being used (UK, USA, etc.) in order to be able to use it.

Who is your provider, what kind of phone do you have, exactly what kind of help do you need, etc.

If you need help, you have to request it in a constructive manner, so that does that can help will understand what you are asking.